Anne Simon directs Tracy Letts’ Killer Joe

The desperate measures that poverty drives people to are explored in Killer Joe, performed in English in Luxembourg on January 10, 14 and 15. Here, Erik Abbott finds out what audiences can expect from this dark but engaging drama.

It’s ‘the way he uses the text’. That is Anne Simon describing her affinity for the works of American playwright Tracy Letts, whose play Killer Joe she is directing for the Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg.

The play, which will run at Théâtre des Capucins on 10, 14 and 15 January, Simon calls ‘a pure actor’s play’ which she says allows for less concern about the production concept.

Such plays, though, require ‘really great writing’. It is Letts’ writing—his use of text—that makes him one of the playwrights to whom Simon is most drawn. (He won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for August: Osage County, which will be presented in a French production at the Grand Théâtre on 07 and 08 January.)

This is the second Letts play Simon has directed, after Bug in 2009 at TNL. One of the cast members from that production, Milton Welsh, is delighted to return to the Luxembourg stage for Killer Joe—with its ‘great cast and fantastic director’.

Welsh plays Ansel, the patriarch of the dysfunctional (to say the least) Smith family. (Audiences may also remember Welsh from the TNL productions of The Last Virgin in 2012, directed by Simon, and True West in 2008.)

‘No one gets to leave’

Alessija Lause, who plays Sharla, Ansel’s current wife, says she finds the sadness of the play appealing.

Lause, referencing the words of director and acting teacher Larry Moss, says that in a dysfunctional family, ‘No one gets to leave’.

And, indeed, escape is a central theme in this dark, sometimes brutal play. The characters long to escape their circumstances, their poverty, their desperation. But such is the craft of Tracy Letts that it still manages to be funny. It’s ‘so dark, so mean’, Lause says, ‘you just have to laugh’.

The story is admittedly disturbing. Chris, Ansel’s son and a somewhat hapless drug dealer, owes money to people not known for generous repayment terms.

His unseen mother has a large life insurance policy. The idea is hatched to have her murdered. Chris’ father and Sharla agree and Joe Cooper, a local lawman who moonlights as a killer for hire, is engaged.

The Smiths don’t have enough cash up front, so Chris offers up his sister, Dottie, as a down payment. Things, however, don’t go as planned.

Strong voice about American culture

American actor Isaac Bush, who plays Joe, sees the play as a ‘fascinating corruption’ about a particular segment of American culture. The characters, he says, are very strong, very real and very believable despite their unbelievable circumstances. Still, he says, noting the humour, it is ‘so much fun to play’.

Daron Yates, who plays Chris, agrees and adds that, although it is a great challenge, he gets ‘goose bumps’ in rehearsals during some moments.

Elisabet Johannesdottir (recognisable to Luxembourg audiences from As You Like It at the Grand in 2013 and Closer at Capucins in 2011) plays Dottie and sees her as another of the ‘broken ingenues’ she enjoys playing. The play shows, she says, ‘a lot of love’, but it is ‘unhealthy’ love.

The characters are all damaged. Simon argues that poverty ‘does something to people’ and Lause agrees, noting that the characters are cornered and trapped. They are possibly just searching for love—or perhaps a just a healthier version of it?

Regardless, Killer Joe, with its explosive theatricality and bleak humour, promises a thrilling and provocative evening.

Killer Joe is performed at the Théâtre des Capucins on January 10, 14 & 15 from 8pm. The performance is in English with French subtitles. www.theatres.lu